NOT SENDING A GUNBOAT

Charles Glass on the

helplessness of the great powers in response to kidnappers

Beirut IN THE days of Europe's imperial glory, the powers treated the kidnapping of their subjects by petty foreign warlords as a casus belli. They often did their best to avoid war, which was expensive, by ignoring affronts or placating chieftains, but they were in the end prepared to fight.

The young American republic set the tone early in its life by paying the Barbary pirates not to seize its merchant ships. When the seizures continued anyway, President Jefferson collected a navy and sent it to the Mediterranean to sink the Saracen marauders. (Libyan history books teach children that Libya defeated the US, so beware my version of events.) A century later, the allied powers invaded Peking to end the siege of their consulates by rebel- lious Boxers.

in between those two military adven- tures, in 1864, Britain had to face the illegal detention of its consul, Captain Charles Duncan Cameron, by Emperor Theodore of Abyssinia. Cameron had in- nocently gone from Theodore's court to Muslim Sudan, the Christian emperor's sworn enemy, to investigate the possibility of growing cotton there. Cameron had gone unaware that the Foreign Office had simply filed, without bothering to answer, a letter from Theodore to Queen Victoria in which he suggested sending an embassy to London. Victoria's lack of response and Cameron's journey to Sudan led Theodore to the conclusion that Britain was plotting an invasion of his empire. When Cameron returned to Abyssinia, Theodore threw him into chains and arrested 30 other Europeans, mostly missionaries and en- gineers.

Word of Cameron's detention — long before the modern media arrived to 'inter- fere' with the normal conduct of diplomacy — reached the British consul in Aden four months later. Britain despatched a special envoy, the Iraqi-born Christian, Hormuzd Rassam, who had to wait two years for an audience with Theodore and who pre- sented him with various gifts. Rassam too was chained and thrown into prison. The Prime Minister, the Earl of Derby, tried to ignore the affair. The Times published Rassam's letters, smuggled out of Abyssi- nia, describing his plight. Derby tried to

negotiate, but finally issued an ultimatum.

In August 1867, Sir Robert, later Lord, Napier prepared an expeditionary force of 32,000 men, 55,000 pack animals, includ- ing elephants to carry heavy artillery, and a fleet of 300 ships. The flotilla landed in Egyptian-controlled Eritrea, where Napier constructed a railway to carry supplies. His forces reached Theodore's fortress at Mag- dala in the Ethiopian highlands just before Easter 1868.

The British easily won their first engage- ment with the emperor's forces. Theodore set his European hostages free. When he refused to surrender, Napier's troops stormed the gates, burned Magdala to the ground and seized the royal treasure. As he retreated into his burning city, Theo- dore shot himself dead with a pistol pre- sented to him years earlier by Queen Victoria, After four long years, Cameron was free. Britain had demonstrated to emper- ors, sheikhs, chieftains and maharajas that it would not tolerate interference with its subjects' liberty. How many chiefs in the years that followed resisted the temptation to kidnap an Englishman because he knew that, sooner or later, the Great Queen would send the horse soldiers? Time mar- ches on: these days, white man, you are on your own.

In Lebanon, 14 Europeans, if Russians and Americans can be counted in that vague category, who have been kidnapped over the last 18 months are still missing. The current tally is: five Americans, four French, three Soviets, an Italian and a Briton. The total is subject to change, as some hostages are released or murdered, and others are picked up. No organisation holds all of them, and they are not all held for the same reasons. They are here somewhere, but no one has any idea how to get them out.

Hostage-taking has been a salient fea- ture of the war since it began in 1975, and the overwhelming majority of victims have been Lebanese. 'In Lebanon, we have this custom,' a Shi'ite Muslim friend told me. `If someone kidnaps me, my family will kidnap someone from his family. If they cannot find someone from his family, they will take one of his friends.' The idea is to exchange one hostage for another, but the system often breaks down, with fatal re- sults for all the hostages. Thousands of people have died in just this way in the last ten years.

On the whole, foreigners have fared better than Lebanese. Of the 35 kidnapped in the last two years, 17 are free. At least three have been murdered, and it seems a fourth, the American diplomat William Buckley, was killed two weeks ago. Those still in custody are in the hands, variously, of Lebanese Shi'ites, Lebanese Sunnis and Palestinians. Each group has its own reasons.

The Shi'ites, who hold the Americans and French, want Kuwait to release 17 men convicted of complicity in blowing up the American and French embassies there in December 1983. A small group of Sunni fundamentalists, who are holding three Soviet citizens and have already murdered a fourth, originally wanted a ceasefire to save the lives of Sunni fanatics in Tripoli. After that was achieved, they changed goals, insisting the Russians would remain in custody until Reagan and Gorbachev agreed at their summit on a solution for Lebanon. If their lives hang on that, the future is bleak for them. Reagan and Gorbachev should focus their attention on simpler problems like preventing nuclear Armageddon.

Most diplomats and intelligence experts here agree that the missing Briton, Alec Collett, is probably in the hands of the anti-PLO Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. Three of Abu Nidal's assassins, including his nephew, are in prison in Britain for the attempted murder of the Israeli ambassa- DOR Shlomo Argov. Abu Nidal had con- demned Mrs Thatcher's invitation to the Jordanian-PLO delegation. Abu Nidal and his Syrian masters must have felt at least as much satisfaction as the Israelis over Geof- frey Howe's snub this week to the Palesti- nians, though perhaps not enough for Abu Nidal to release the 63-year-old Collett. No one seems to know who is holding the Italian businessman, Alberto Molinari, who had lived here for 20 years when he was kidnapped last month.

The Americans' Shi'ite captors go by the name 'Islamic Jihad' and from time to time issue statements, release photographs and make anonymous telephone calls — just enough to torment the hostages' families, but not enough to give a clear idea about where and how the hostages are. The Russians' kidnappers call themselves the Islamic Liberation Organisation, Ibn Al- W. alid Forces, Beirut Branch' — the Kha- lid Ibn-Al Walid indicating their Sunni nature in the way 'Oliver Cromwell Bri- gade' might be a hint of the sectarian colouring of a similar group in Northern Ireland. Collett's captors call themselves The Revolutionary Organisation of Social- ist Muslims'. None of the groups exists in a formal sense. Each has chosen names for the occasion.

The search for the missing foreigners is difficult, particularly for diplomats who find it impossible to travel safely in Leba- non. Investigations, by journalists, includ- ing my own, have yielded little. Everyone who might have something to do with the kidnappings strenously denies any involve- ment. Some claim to be offended at the suggestion. When I spoke to a Sunni religious leader in Beirut about the missing Russians, whom I suspected were held in a basement not far from the apartment where we met, he said, 'The Muslim religion does not allow kidnapping because the kidnappers deprive people of their freedom. This is forbidden.' In Baalbek, Hussein Musawi, the leader of the Shi'ite Islamic Amal militia and a cousin of one of the Kuwait prisoners, insisted: 'We are not connected with Islamic Jihad and know nothing about kidnappings.' To listen to them, one would have to conclude that no one has ever been kidnapped in Lebanon. When pressed, Musawi added: 'Imam Khomeini and the Koran forbid detaining the innocent. They don't forbid detaining oppressors and their agents.'

Musawi is Western intelligence's prime suspect. His Islamic Amal is, in his words, part of Hizballah, the Party of God, which takes its instructions and guidance (spir- itual and otherwise) from Iran. Musawi isa friendly, amusing man, who lives with his family in Baalbek and in his nearby native village of Nebi Sheet. But he has a deadly serious side. The Syrian army, which has orders to find the hostages, has recently put a checkpoint outside Nebi Sheet. The soldiers seem to observe, if not to search, every car coming in and out. The Syrians have put similar roadblocks around the village of Britel, between Nebi Sheet and Baalbek. Britel is the home of the Shi'ite, Sheikh Sobhi Toufaili, Musawi's main rival for leadership of Hizballah's military forces and another suspected captor of the Amer- icans and the French.

When Musawi and Toufaili were in Damascus this summer, on their way to Iran, the Syrian President, Hafez Al- Assad, granted them an audience. Assad said he wanted the hostages set free. This will take time, and Toufaili and Musawi no doubt checked with Iran before deciding what, if anything, to do.

The changing nature of Syrian-Iranian relations may influence the captors as much as anything the US or France or the Soviet Union does. The regional system of alliances is once again in flux, and Syria is depending less and less on Iran. It is moving closer to its fellow Arabs, particu- larly Saudi Arabia, which can supply it with money and oil, and Jordan. Iran is becoming a liability for Syria. It has inter- fered too often in Lebanon, most recently in Tripoli, and its theocracy sits uncomfort- ably with Assad's secularism. Syria clearly regards Lebanon as an internal affair, and it does not tolerate any role here for Libya (whom it ushered out two years ago), Israel, the US, or even the Lebanese themselves, when they threaten Syrian interests. Syria is slowly continuing the process of increasing its control over all of Lebanon (except the strip still occupied by Israel), sending troops into the Christian town of Zahle and the Sunni city of Tripoli. Syria is putting plainclothes intelligence agents all over Beirut and preparing the ground for the return of the Syrian army to Beirut and Sidon.

As Syria consolidates its hold on Leba- non, and as it divorces itself from Iran, Lebanon's Shi'ite leaders will face a choice similar to that between Syria and Israel which confronted the Maronites in 1983. The choice is simple: Iran, with only a few hundred revolutionary guards near Baal- bek and its border a thousand miles away, or Syria, which surrounds Lebanon, has an army here in force and speaks the same language. The smart money is on Syria, but not everyone is smart.

A complicating factor for Assad, in squandering his political capital to release the Americans if not the Russians, is the increasing unpopularity of the US in the Arab world. President Reagan's words and actions are already undermining America's Arab friends, Tunisia and Egypt. Syria must see little benefit to itself in helping the US and none at all in becoming an American 'ally'.

The US wants very much to get its hostages back. It will not offer the kidnap- pers anything in return, whether this means pressuring Kuwait to release the 17 or promising not to retaliate after the hostages' release.

It has not offered to co-ordinate its efforts with France, Britain, Italy or the Soviet Union. It has not offered President Assad any incentive to help. It has not appointed a Lord Napier to head an expeditionary force to rescue the hostages. It is gathering information and waiting. What else can it do? It could try what the Lebanese themselves resort to: take hos- tages and offer them for exchange. . . . (Some of the pro-Soviet militias here have already begun that process to obtain the release of the three Russians, without the Soviet Embassy officially condoning their actions.)

If not that, the US could ask President Assad, without issuing threats which can- not be carried out, to locate the missing hostages and arrange for their release. It is a pill no more bitter to swallow than that of the continuing detention of innocent men.